


Wasteland

by snekwami



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Gen, Marichat but in an ambiguous and platonic way so it's basically still gen fic, lots of existential timey-wimey weirdness, so spoilers for that, this was inspired by the trailer for Chat Blanc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 15:21:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21163814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snekwami/pseuds/snekwami
Summary: Losing your memories is tough, and losing your sense of time perception on top of that is even tougher.But Marinette remembers one thing.She needs to find Chat Noir.





	Wasteland

**Author's Note:**

> You ever sit in a really boring meeting while very sleep-deprived and accidentally dissociate so hard you experience an entire fic in your head as if you're genuinely watching a dream? (Still not 100% convinced I didn't just fall asleep in that meeting, tbh...)
> 
> Anyway then in the train on the way home I churned out this fic on my phone and I haven't even proofread it so good luck, hope it makes even a small amount of sense.
> 
> (Inspired by the Chat Blanc trailer but only loosely. Think aesthetics.)

Marinette was not sure how long she had been trudging around the wilderness for. A few hours, maybe? She couldn't even recall where she had started or what she was looking for.

She remembered some things, somehow. She knew her name. She remembered her family, her friends, her enemies, her teachers... yes, she remembered people. It was the _events_ that she had forgotten. The events of how she got here.

She distinctly remembered her double life as a superhero. It wasn't something she could easily forget. She also recalled that she could not transform right now – there was something preventing her. Something that rested in her pocket currently, but was too cold, too painful, for her to think about touching.

What she remembered most clearly of all, though, was a particular person.

_Chat Noir._

Her insides grew icier as she thought about him. He was evil and cruel; it was his fault that everything around Marinette was a flat, desolate, snowy wasteland, with nothing visible but white mist in every direction.

She couldn't remember why he'd done it. What did he want? What could he possibly hope to gain by turning the world into this? All she knew was that she could never forget the look on his face when he had thrust his hand right into her heart and somehow used an unknown power to create an icy blast that covered the whole world.

Yes... that was what Marinette wanted to find. She wanted to find Chat Noir so that she could put a stop to this – and make him pay for what he had done.

But it was just so cold...

She had no idea how she hadn't died. Putting a hand to her cheek, her skin was getting colder and colder. Somehow she still had the drive to keep moving forwards. Where else could she even go?

Too much despair in her heart, she stopped and sank to her knees. Maybe she couldn't save the day. Maybe her life would end here, on this barren, icy plateau, with nothing but her own faint wisps of breath to keep her company.

She took one last look up at the sky. Somehow it hadn't grown dark yet – was the sun still up there, somewhere? No matter where it was, its warmth could never reach her. Not here.

A shadow crossed her at last. Was this nightfall? Her own mind playing tricks on her?

No – there was an audible crunch of snow underfoot too. Time seemed to stand still. The last wisp of breath hung in the air, a spiral just barely touching her cheek. Out of the mist a silhouette emerged, faint at first, then more defined as the figure approached. Oh, so not nightfall after all, but simply the shadow of whoever this was, covering Marinette in a welcome darkness from this unending, blinding white light all around.

It wasn't Chat Noir – she could sense that it was not him. Sure enough, a few seconds later a familiar figure stood in front of her, one that she had not expected to see again for years at least. But still, a welcome sight all the same.

“Bunnyx,” she said. Her voice seemed so stuck in her throat that she could barely hear herself over the howling of that harsh, cold wind.

The superpowered, future form of her own classmate looked down at her with something that might have been pity. “Well, well, well. I haven't seen you in a long time, Marinette.”

Marinette frowned – she had only ever met Bunnyx as Ladybug, so how...?

“Yeah, I know it's you,” Bunnyx continued. “I’m not even surprised, to be honest. The only one who could have survived for years in a snowstorm like this is Ladybug. It's gotta be you.”

“Years? It's only been a few hours!”

Bunnyx pulled the little watch out of her pocket and flicked it open, revealing the complicated timekeeping mechanisms on the inside. “It's been ten years. Your perception of time's clearly off. Though considering you haven't aged at all, that probably explains it...”

Marinette looked down at herself. Sure enough she was still the same teenager as she had been before Chat Noir attacked her, still in the same clothes, the same hairstyle, same everything!

But Bunnyx... well, _Alix_... was different. Taller now, clearly a young adult, like she had been when she arrived from the future to help with the Timetagger attack. And yet still, not even the same as that. Her pink hair was turning white at the tips. The blue on her hero suit had bleached so light it was almost indistinguishable from the rest of it. All in all, she blended in perfectly with the surroundings. A true Arctic bunny.

So many questions ran through Marinette's mind. Why had Bunnyx aged while she hadn't? Why were both of them alive? Why hadn't Bunnyx used her powers to find Marinette sooner? How could ten entire years have passed without Marinette noticing?

But all she could do was keel over and croak out, “I think I'm going to die...”

Even now, time seemed to be slowing down to an unbearable crawl, with the snowflakes almost suspended in mid-air, breath itself not getting into her lungs fast enough to keep her going, her own brain shutting down aside from convincing her of an unshakeable, impending sense of doom.

If she stayed here, she would die. She was sure of it. There was no way she could keep going any longer. This really was the end.

Wordlessly, Bunnyx waved her umbrella and opened up a portal in the air beside them. Marinette just stared at it – at this point she could hardly even see. Who knew what lay on the other side?

“What are you waiting for?” Bunnyx said, giving her a sharp jab in the arm with the end of the umbrella. “Unless you want to die out here then get in the portal!”

Marinette had almost no energy left. But her last fighting instinct was to cling onto life at all costs, and with what little force she could muster, she pushed herself to her feet and launched herself into the portal.

-

The first thing she noticed was a slight tingling sensation in her fingers. It had been so long since she _felt_ something in them that she slapped the sides of her face. That stinging... she hadn't imagined it could ever feel so good.

Slowly, her surroundings came into focus. She seemed to be inside some sort of little log cabin, like the ones seen on postcards from the Alps. A log fire burned in the nearby fireplace. Outside the window was more of that blinding ice that she was glad to be out of. She realized that she had fallen into an armchair, and struggled to sit up properly. Bunnyx was leaning against what looked like a bookcase, absent-mindedly twirling her umbrella.

“Where am I?” Marinette asked. Her voice was so weak that she didn't expect Bunnyx to hear her, but somehow she did.

“On the surface of the earth somewhere. I can't be more specific.”

Still too weak to talk properly, Marinette pointed a finger at the fireplace. “How...?”

“How is it still burning when there's no wood around, and everything else is gone? This house is a refuge from time, that's how. Entropy doesn't exist here. Everything remains the same. Of course, nothing appears to be changing out there either, but it's all frozen so that's different...”

Marinette did not reply, but the confusion must have shown on her face.

“Sorry, is that a bit too sciencey for you?” Bunnyx said with a grin. “I've had ten years to kill here, so Fluff's been teaching me everything she knows. Which is a lot, by the way. Speaking of which, what do _you_ know? Do you have any idea what's going on?”

Marinette shook her head.

“Well you'd better figure it out soon, okay? I'm getting bored of this weather.”

This was surreal. Somehow ten years had passed, and Marinette hadn't noticed any of it? And Bunnyx had been stuck in this cabin, aging normally over the decade, while Marinette didn't?

As exhausted as she was, she had a burning question on her mind – one that put her in a cold, calm fury. “Why didn't you save me?”

“What are you talking about?”

She managed to sit up slightly, and her voice was slowly returning. “Your powers... time travel and teleportation... you had ten years to search for me! Go back ten years... find me... put a stop to all this before it happens...”

To think Bunnyx had waited until Marinette was right on the edge of death before stepping in! With powers like that, there had been no need to wait that long. Bunny heroes weren't bound by any constraints, right? They could go wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted.

Bunnyx sighed. “It's not that easy, so quit glaring at me like that, alright? There's a right time and place to use my powers. If I don't be careful, spacetime itself could be compromised. There's a reason this miraculous only gets given out as a last resort. I would love to have gone back and found you earlier, but where would I look? The entire surface of the earth? How long would I have to spend searching, cumulatively? Chances are I'd die of old age before finding you, and then we'd all be screwed. And anyway, I just _know_ when it's right to use my powers.”

“How?”

Bunnyx’s transformation melted away, leaving Alix Kubdel standing there, and a little kwami by her side. “Fluff tells me.”

Her kwami could communicate with her while transformed? Marinette was sure Tikki had never done that with her.

Oh... _Tikki_...

She reached into her pocket and, wincing, closed her hand around that shard of ice. So cold, it almost looped right round to heat – she pulled it out and laid it on her lap.

There, inside the ice, was Tikki.

Chat Noir's powers had done this to her. It was apparently an enchanted ice, as Tikki could not escape, and so Marinette couldn't transform. The pain of seeing Tikki trapped there was almost too much to bear.

Fluff zoomed over in an instant. “Oh poor Tikki! What happened to her?”

Marinette clenched her fists. “Chat Noir.”

“He did this?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, why did he do that?”

“Because he... he... I don't know.”

“I know why,” Alix said. “But first we gotta warm you up, since you still look like a zombie. I'm making soup. You talk to Fluff in the meantime, okay?”

She was gone before Marinette could say a word.

“Oh yes, I remember now that you're Ladybug,” Fluff gabbled. “I saw it in the fourth dimension once, though I don't look in the opposite direction to the arrow of time very often as it confuses humans too much, since you can only see in three dimensions, and anyway there's far too much in my memory, it would have taken me forever to access it, and you humans have such short lifespans there's simply not enough time...”

“How do you know when the time is right for Bunnyx to use her powers?” Marinette asked.

“Oh, it's really quite simple! Kind of like how you always know how to use your Lucky Charm. I observe the path a three dimensional object will take through spacetime and calculate the best outcome, then I communicate with Bunnyx to tell her how she needs to curve spacetime in order to get the objects to follow the events of that timeline.”

“Uh... yeah.”

Fluff shook her head. “You're still not fully functional, are you? And you're quite young, you haven't travelled far along the axis of time yet, so I doubt you'll have learnt that much yet. Alix certainly hadn't! But I've had ten years to teach her, so she's quite proficient in manipulating relativity at this point in spacetime.”

At that moment Alix returned and shoved a mug of soup into Marinette's hands. Despite the steam coming off the top, she could still hardly feel it under the layer of deathly cold that still had her in its grip.

“So,” said Alix. “You figured out yet why Chat Noir went all Elsa on you?”

Marinette took a sip from the mug. She could barely taste the soup, but it seemed to be helping her voice get back to normal, so she was grateful for it. “I don't know... was he not always like that?”

“Hah, as if. He definitely wasn't always your enemy. Your number 1 enemy is someone else.”

Marinette barely had to think. “Hawk Moth.”

“Exactly. And what does Hawk Moth do to people?”

“He akumatizes people.”

“And so...?”

“And so...” It hit her. “Chat Noir got akumatized!”

Alix was nodding. “Yeah, that's what happened. I don't know why he got akumatized, but anyway he apparently tried to attack you, and you used your Lucky Charm. It told you that you needed an ally to help you. So you ran away, got my miraculous, and gave it to me.”

Ah yes... she was beginning to remember. She had indeed given the bunny miraculous to Alix. Young, teenager Alix, her classmate. It genuinely didn't seem that long ago. Had it really been ten years?

“I think I remember,” she admitted. “Then I was going back to the bakery to get cookies for Tikki so that I could transform again, but Chat caught up with me... He had followed me, and he knew I was Ladybug... so he said he'd freeze everything. Including me. And then he...”

Then he had Cataclysmed her, right in the heart. Or frozen her, or whatever his akuma powers were. He had done _something_, and the world around was transformed into this icy hell, and Marinette was forced to wander around looking for anything that had existed before, with no powers and no memories, with everyone else destroyed in the event.

She wiped an incoming tear from her eye. “He... he was my friend. My Chat Noir. And he turned evil, and did this to me, and to Tikki, and to everyone and everything... And I've spent the past ten years blaming it all on him...”

Where was he now? What was he doing? Was he in an icy palace of isolation somewhere, singing his heart away? That seemed like the kind of silly thing he would do.

Or rather, it was the kind of silly thing Chat _Noir_ would do. Chat... Blanc? No, he wouldn't. He didn't have it in his heart to be anything but mindlessly cruel.

She loved him... yes, she loved Chat Noir very much. He was her friend, her partner, her confidante, her teammate, everything she ever needed. And now he was brainwashed into doing evil. It was likely that his icy blast had killed even Hawk Moth, leaving no one to command him, no one to stop him, on his endless quest to force the world to suffer as much grief and despair as he was suffering.

And what had caused all that grief and despair in the first place? What had caused him to become akumatized?

Oh... she remembered.

“His father is Hawk Moth,” she whispered.

“Wait, seriously?” Alix still had a grin on her face, as out of place as it seemed right now.

“We had just found out. We found the lair... it was in the Agreste mansion.”

“So you're telling me that Adrien is Chat Noir, and his dad's Hawk Moth???”

Marinette simply nodded. She was so numb to her own emotions that it didn't have an impact on her. Adrien was Chat Noir? Made sense why she cared so much about him, then. She loved them both. And now, they were one and the same.

Somewhere, deep inside, the tiniest flicker of resolve ignited.

“I will save him,” she said.

At once, she noticed the weight of the mug in her hand. She was – she was _feeling_ it. The slight warmth, sifting through the pores in her skin, into her bloodstream. The world outside frozen solid, but here, a hearty fire, and the soft armchair fabric enveloping her.

She didn't hate Chat Noir. On the contrary, she loved him. And he deserved to be saved from this terrible fate.

“That’s the spirit!” Alix said. “There's the Ladybug I was hoping for.”

Oh yes, Ladybug...

“Tikki is still frozen,” Marinette started. “I can't transform unless...”

There was the faintest sensation of a trickle down her leg, and a drop landing on her foot. She looked down in her lap to see –

Tikki had started defrosting.

Slowly but surely, the ice encasing her was melting. Bit by bit.

“You'll be able to transform soon enough,” Alix said, giving her a thumbs up. “And in the meantime you'd better drink that soup. _You_ need energy to transform too, you know.”

Marinette nodded and took a few more sips. She still had questions on her mind, and now, at last, some brainpower to ask them. “Why did you age and I didn't?”

“I may as well ask you that question! What did Chat say before he cursed you?”

“He said...” She cast her mind back. The memories were really beginning to shine through the haze now. “He said that he was going to freeze everything solid. Including me.”

“So then he froze you. Guess that's why you didn't age. And then he used his powers or curse or whatever, and everyone else died. I survived because I was transformed, and you survived because... well...”

“Because he froze you in spacetime!” Fluff added in. “That's why you lost your perception of time; it was running according to his akuma magic rules rather than according to scientific principles, so despite not accelerating to a large degree relative to your environment, you may have experienced time slowing down or speeding up indiscriminately. You also may have wandered far from your starting position. I doubt we're in Paris anymore. To tell the truth, I don't remember where this cabin actually is, only that a previous bunny built it during a time of great crisis, and it will endure through any timeline change...”

Tikki's feet were now poking out of the ice. It lifted Marinette's spirits even more.

“What should I do?” she asked. “I don't know where to find Chat, and even if I do, ten years have passed and no one else is alive.”

“Won't your Lucky Charm fix all that?” Alix suggested. “And I'll drop you off in Paris, in Hawk Moth's secret lair that you found in his house. I bet that's where that dumb cat is hiding.”

“Lucky Charm will indeed fix everything,” Fluff said. “Including your memories. The akuma power caused you to be frozen in a state of shock, so you lost your memories, correct? So when you fix it all, you’ll lose your memories of this time sector instead! So will Alix! And Chat Noir! You will all revert back to normal with no memory of this, and everyone will be back and Paris will be restored to its natural timeline ten years ago. This detour was necessary to fix things without wreaking havoc on spacetime.”

Marinette frowned, the cold seeping back in momentarily. “So... no one will remember any of this?”

Fluff beamed. “I will! Don't worry, it’s not the first time I'll be the only one to remember a time detour, and it won't be the last!”

“H... how many times?”

More solemn now, Fluff and Alix exchanged a look before answering. “Many, many times. Sass's experience of time loops pales in comparison to mine. I have witnessed self-consistent loops, self-consistent objects that appear to defy entropy, heroes who have never remembered me, heroes who have ceased to exist when their job is done and the only way to fix the timeline is with their own erasure. I have been transported through the cosmos millions of times. I am older than the current age of the universe – I did not exist before it, but through time travel, I have experienced more years than there are stars in the sky. And I will continue to do so.”

“Her brain is like a big computer,” Alix said. “So much info stored in there from all the timelines she's experienced. She can see both ways through time, but good luck getting her to remember something specific.”

“It can take me a while to access certain parts of my memories, since there's so much to sift through. If you asked me a very specific question, it might take me longer than your entire lifetime to remember the answer. Time goes by very fast for me – you humans experience it much slower. I've lived too long to experience time the same way you do.”

“Makes for some very fun, very existential conversations. Which has been great, because honestly, most of the books on this shelf are pretty boring.”

Marinette's brain might have been close to exploding, so it was a welcome relief when she heard a little cough from the ice shard. Looking down, she saw Tikki lying there – almost fully melted out of her prison, and coming back to consciousness.

“Marinette...? What happened?”

Too happy for words, Marinette scooped Tikki into her hands and cuddled her close. It was impossible to put into words just how much she had missed this little kwami.

“Chat Noir got akumatized and due to timey-wimey stuff Marinette's gotta go back and fix it,” Alix explained.

Marinette looked up at her. “Will Tikki at least remember?”

Fluff shook her head. “No one will remember but me. It's my burden alone. Forever.”

“Or until the universe ends...”

“No. Longer than that. I have constantly travelled back and forth through time, more than you can imagine. The reason why things end is because time catches up to them. Even the universe. But time can never catch up to me. I am a being independent of the curvature of spacetime. I can dip in and out anywhere at will. I will always exist.”

For several seconds Marinette just paused to think about it. There was something... _comforting_ in that. That no matter what happened, Fluff would always be around.

“But time can certainly catch up to _you_,” Alix reminded her, tapping her pocket watch. “Did you know gravity is just an effect of the curvature of spacetime? We fall towards wherever time is slowest. Fluff taught me that, haha. But anyway – for us humans, time is running out. And I don't wanna end my days here in the tundra any more than you do. So you'd better hurry up and transform, so you can reverse all this.”

Marinette nodded, standing up, with poor confused Tikki still cradled in her palm. Was there any use explaining it to her in more detail? Or was there no point when everything was about to be forgotten anyway? Who knew, maybe Tikki had heard Fluff's spiel before. Maybe she already cottoned on to what was happening.

She set Tikki down on the armchair and handed her the soup, so that the poor thing could drink the rest of it and restore some energy. Not quite cookies, but after spending so long trapped in ice, a cup of warm soup was probably a better option anyway.

“Thank you, Alix,” Marinette said. “You saved me from dying out there.”

“Yup. I've been out there every day hoping I'd find you. Or at least someone, y'know.”

“And now, after ten years apparently, I've finally managed to regain my memories, my spirit, and my powers... because I remembered that I don't hate Chat Noir after all, he's been akumatized, and I really do care about him, and so I was able to let go of my aimless hate and become human again...”

“Seriously?” Alix scoffed. “Your love for Chat Noir isn't what gives you your humanity! All you needed was to warm up a little.”

For the first time in what had to have been years, Marinette smiled, thinking of that warm feeling inside. “Yeah. Just needed to warm up a little.”

“It’s not that deep. It's not some weird metaphor. It's... ugh, just transform already!”

“Tikki, spots on!”

How refreshing it was to experience her transformation again. All at once, back in her Ladybug suit, nothing seemed cold at all. She didn't have any of her ice power-up macarons with her, but she didn't need it anyway. With this suit on, she was _Ladybug_. She was invincible.

Alix, too, had transformed, standing before her as Bunnyx again. She opened up a portal.

Peering through, Marinette could see that there was a large chunk of ice down in a dark room, and inside the ice was...

“Chat Blanc...”

He was frozen solid, just like Tikki had been. For the first time, Marinette wondered – had that been on purpose? As a protection tactic? Perhaps deep down inside, Chat still wanted to do the right thing, wanted to save her, never mind who his father was. Perhaps he cursed her to give her a chance at staying alive, and froze himself to make sure nothing changed until Ladybug could free everyone.

Would she ever get a chance to ask him? Or would they both forget too soon?

“Remember,” Bunnyx said, “use your Lucky Charm item to free him, then capture his akuma and do that whole thing you do where you magically fix everything. You won't remember anything and neither will I, but we'll be back to normal. And then you guys can kick his dad's ass.”

Marinette nodded. “I hope Fluff will tell us about this again someday.”

“Yeah. Me too. Now get in this portal, ‘cause these things aren't super stable, okay? Good luck.”

Marinette hopped through the portal, then turned back to watch as it closed up and left the time-cabin behind her forever.

Would she ever go back there one day? Would she remember it that time? She certainly hoped so.

And with that, she turned towards Chat Blanc, ready to fix everything and make that ten years have been worth its while.


End file.
